


Of Darkness and Light

by DHW



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7429517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHW/pseuds/DHW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has awakened beneath the city. They have four days to save the world. And to save each other.</p><p>A Post-Chosen adventure with our favourite Scoobies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Darkness and Light

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not mine. They belong to the almighty Joss. I’m just playing in his sandpit. Sad, sad times.
> 
>  **A/N** : Rating will eventually rise to Mature/Explicit (circa Chp. 5).
> 
> Thank you to Littleotter73 for her brilliant advice!

When Willow awoke, she knew she had four days.

Yes. Four days. Of that she was quite certain. In four days it would be midsummer. Litha, when the edges between worlds began to blur, lose their definition, and the light of the universe came peeking through. The night dragons rose. If it were to be any time, it would be then. 

Opening her eyes, Willow saw that it was still dark. Dawn had yet to break, the only light in her room emanating from the small red numbers that flashed on her alarm clock. 4.15am. She sighed softly, running her hands across the soft cotton of her bed sheets. A shiver ran up her spine. Soon the sun would rise and the day would begin, one of four left before midsummer. It wasn’t much time, but with luck it would be enough for what she had to do. 

Slowly, Willow slipped out from under her duvet, a small smile curling her lips as she felt the cool morning air caress her bare skin. She stretched, the crack of her sleep-stiffened joints filling the silence of her room. In the half-light she could just make out the outline of her face in the mirror as she reached for her comb. Her hair, mussed from her pillow, stuck out around her head at a number of odd and somewhat improbable angles. She flexed her bare feet, digging her toes into the softness of the sheepskin that lay beside her bed, and with a contented hum, began to comb the remnants of sleep from her hair. 

There was much to do, but the mornings, the time before the dawn, belonged to her. It was a ritual of sorts. Each morning the same; she would rise from the cocoon of her bed and stretch. She would take the wooden comb that lay on her nightstand and tease the kinks from her hair before padding, barefoot, to the bathroom where she would wash her face, her neck, her hands with the icy water that flowed from the cold tap. Fingers numb, she would then begin the arduous task of plaiting her long coppery locks, her hands twisting and twining her hair in precise, practiced movements until it hung down the centre of her back in a thick, neat braid. Next would come the coffee, the soft click of the electric kettle and the clink of a mug set upon the kitchen counter mingling with the beginnings of the dawn chorus. As the water boiled, she would continue through the galley kitchen of her flat and into the living room, drawing back the heavy red velvet of the curtains to let in the first light of the day. Then, and only then, as the first shafts of golden light tumbled through the windowpane and onto the carpet below, would she select her Token and the day would begin. 

As the first rays of sunlight hit her dark carpet, Willow, near brimming with excitement, began her daily task of Token selection. Questing fingers, warmed by the gentle light of the early morning sun, ran across the bookcases that graced the western wall of her living room. The pads of her fingers tingled with magic as they brushed across the old oak shelving. She sighed with satisfaction at the sight of all things in their proper place. Some Tokens were tricky; they would dance and move, run and hide when her back was turned. Devious things with some small magic of their own. But no, here they were, just as she had left them. On the nearest shelf was her silver goblet, her tin of beech leaves, her pink soap carved into the shape of an elephant. Next to these things lay her lump of pine resin, her beeswax candle, her photo of a smiling Tara in a shiny golden frame. With a careful eye, she surveyed the rest; Tokens and trinkets graced each of the shelves, displayed alongside her books in threes, each gently humming with power.

She passed her hand along the middle shelf of the third bookcase, her smile widening as she felt the tell-tale tug of power, destiny, that told her today’s Token was near. Willow reached out to each of the three that sat upon the shelf: a silver locket given to her by Buffy for her twenty-fourth birthday, a heavy brass key that cried out for its lock, and a small ceramic dish the colour of poppies. Her fingertips caressed each in turn and she closed her eyes, feeling for the little crackles and pops of magic that guided her. 

A loud crack filled the air as she touched the dish, sending a small static shock up her arm. This was it. With a grin, she picked up the Token and took it over to her coffee table, where she set it down upon the large cork coaster that sat at its centre. The gentle rumble of boiling water and the click of the kettle called to her from the kitchen and Willow padded softly from the living room. The ritual could wait. Tea was more important at this moment. 

Happiness always begins with a cup of tea. It was a phrase Giles had uttered often and one Willow had come to wholeheartedly believe in. Carefully, confidently, Willow spooned the dark, aromatic leaves into the bottom of her glass teapot. Four teaspoons, heaped, no more, no less. On Fridays, she drank Earl Grey, the kind that smelt of bergamot and lemon zest. She shook the teapot, spreading the leaves evenly across the bottom, then added the water and stirred. Three minutes passed lazily as she watched the tealeaves swirling gently in the ever-darkening liquid, dancing on the currents left by her spoon. Then, with an air of satisfaction, she placed the lid back on top of the pot, watching as the leaves sank slowly to the bottom. Delicately, she poured the fresh tea into her mug. Today’s was blue and emblazoned with the words ‘I like big mugs and I cannot lie’. It had been a gift from Xander, as most of her mugs were, this one in particular to celebrate her move here to England. To Durham specifically, an old, sleepy city tucked away in the northernmost part of the country. 

It was her second summer in Durham and, from the looks of things, it was shaping up to be a good one. The news spoke of unseasonable heat waves and hosepipe bans down in the south. Temperatures were climbing steadily up into the late-twenties, unusually hot for England, leaving her with sun-kissed days and sticky nights. The weather reminded her of California, of Sunnydale, in a way, only wetter and windier and greener. It was a welcome heat after the relative chill of spring and she luxuriated in it, spending her time sat upon the riverbank instead of in the library, content to research in the sunshine. The British summer was a fickle mistress, blowing hot and cold from one minute to the next with little in the way of warning, and Willow had learnt early on to make the most of it. 

With a soft sigh, Willow returned to the living room, steaming mug cradled between her delicate fingers. She perched upon the edge of the coffee table as she drank, gazing out of the large French windows that lead onto her tiny balcony. Before her the city sprawled in its lazy, ramshackle way. It was a mess of Tudor terraces and more modern complexes from which the Cathedral and Castle rose, dominating the skyline as they had every day for almost a millennium. They loomed over their surroundings like great sentinels, watching the city and its inhabitants, each a reminder of the many great powers that had held sway there over the centuries. Durham was a city built in the shadow of God and Kings, of learning and of magic, the rule of each ostentatiously displayed though the ancient stone buildings at its core. It was a city of power, a place where the threads of Britain’s wild magic converged. 

Sunlight poured in through the open curtains, dust motes dancing their merry way through the shafts of light. Willow flexed her toes, stretched her legs, smiling as the beams fell upon her naked flesh, gentle warmth suffusing her skin. Closing her eyes, she drank deeply from the mug, the comforting taste of the bittersweet tea sweeping across her tongue. In the distance she could hear the bells ringing out the hour, mingling with the hustle and bustle of the beginnings of the new day. The gentle hum of cars and lorries drifted up from the street below as she drained the last of the liquid from her mug. 

Setting her mug down on the table with a soft clink, she rose from her spot and walked towards the heavy wooden box that lived behind a hideously floral chintz armchair. It had been a gift from Giles, one of a pair, its twin nestled between the bookshelves in the Ex-Watcher’s flat. Smiling, she ran her fingers over the lid, tracing the patterns carved into the dark wood. Beneath her hands she could feel the soft thrum of magic, of the charms that spoke of locks and keys and secrets infused within the very fabric of the chest. At her touch the catches snapped free from their bindings, the lid popping open to reveal its contents. 

From the chest, Willow removed two large tallow candles, a silver dish the size of a serving platter and a small, square bottle containing a dark, syrupy liquid. Casting a satisfied eye over her selection, she closed the chest, the scrape of the catches sliding back into place at her whispered ‘ _claudo_ ’. While she lived alone, her flat heavily warded against intruders, it didn’t hurt to be careful. Though the chest’s contents were mostly innocuous, predominantly filled with standard casting sundries and magical bric-a-brac, it was also home to a number of her more dangerous items. Items that could do a great deal of damage should they fall into the wrong hands. 

No. One could never be too careful.

“Right,” she said to herself, placing the items she had selected from the chest into the backpack that sat by the living room door, “time to begin, I think.”

Rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes, she walked over to the coffee table. In a practiced manner, she drew a circle in the air with the tip of her left index finger, a soft hum vibrating through her chest. Kneeling before the table, she grasped her selected Token with her right hand, the ceramic cool beneath her palm, and began her incantation.

“ _In absentia luci, tenebrae vincunt. In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum._ ”

The words fell from her lips in a whisper, meeting the surface of the table in a curl of golden smoke. They spread over the wood in questing tendrils, twisting and twirling along the air currents that meandered silently through her flat. With a crack, the smoke turned silver as it encountered the Token, changing its lazy course outwards across the table to one directed towards the small dish. Barely a minute later, the dish was no longer visible, obscured by a swirling mass of silvery mist. 

“ _Fui quod es, eris quod sum._ ”

Willow felt a jolt of power run up her arm, crackling across her nerves as it flowed towards her centre. Joy exploded within her as the magic reached her core, pulsing through her body with every beat of her heart. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the sticky push of the magic in her blood as it flowed within her, wrapping itself around the darkness, the grief and the rage, that she knew resided in her soul. Two deep breaths in and she opened her eyes, tensing as the she felt the hot prickling of pain across her skin. It danced across her flesh like electricity, sharp and raw, increasing in intensity as it rushed down her arm toward the Token. 

“ _Inretio!_ ”

A cry of equal parts relief and exhilaration left Willow’s lips as the pain stopped. Breathing heavily, she removed her hand from the Token, its once small magic now imbued with something stronger, darker. Carefully, her hands shaking, she lifted the Token from the table by the cork coaster on which it sat and moved it to the kitchen windowsill. She gave it a wary glance, gently sliding it to the left-hand side of the sill where it would catch the most light. 

“Now, you,” she said to the Token, wagging an admonishing finger at it, “stay there and don’t make any trouble. I don’t have time for trouble today.” 

With a nod, more to herself than the Token, she turned towards her bedroom and set about the task of getting dressed.

\---

It was near 9am by the time Willow left her flat. Already the sun was high in the sky, burning away the relative chill of the night, leaving the air hot and humid. Stepping out into the sunshine, she slid her door key into the back pocket of her jeans and made her way down the hill towards the centre of town. The streets were quiet, almost eerily so, with most of the students that usually crowded the narrow lanes ostensibly still in bed. Nursing hangovers, Willow suspected. Exams had finished the previous Monday, leaving the undergraduates with three weeks of free time before the end of term; three weeks they filled with the fine British tradition of binge drinking and late-night dancing, it seemed. Only the postgraduates and staff still faced the rigours of nine-to-five and beyond come June.

Humming gently to herself, Willow made her way across Prebend’s Bridge and up towards Palace Green and the Library. Durham was truly beautiful in the summer. Sunlight suited the leafy city, seemingly bringing its cobbles and ancient buildings to life. Its Cathedral and Colleges, so drab and dreary in the grey of the winter, seemed to shine with the spirit of the season, suddenly vibrant in the heat of the summer haze. The river sparkled, singing with the splashes of rowing boats and the calls of waterfowl, wending its lazy way around the Cathedral and under the many beautiful stone bridges that connected the peninsula to the rest of the city. It was picture perfect in the summer; quintessentially British, all strawberries and cream and Pimm’s, and so very easy to fall in love with, as Willow inevitably had. 

Willow walked up the cobbled road of the bailey, the white walls of two of the many Colleges of the University looming up on either side of the gently winding street. The scent of over-fried bacon and burnt toast assaulted her nostrils as she passed the great iron gate of one of the Colleges’ entrances. Student breakfast. Not something she missed. Clasping her large notebook close across her chest, she picked her way up the uneven cobbles towards a bright red door, set back from the street in a small, shadowy alleyway. Upon the door there was a small gold plaque. 

_23 North Bailey. Coterie Library._

The door had no handle. No lock. It almost hurt to look at it, in a way, and Willow found her gaze skittering away from its red paint and shiny plaque of its own accord. In fact, the more she looked at it, the less like a door it seemed. It was a door that didn’t want to be found, lest it be used by entirely the wrong sort of creature. 

With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and placed her hand on the blood red wood. Under her fingertips she felt the timber shift and change, forming a doorknob beneath her hand. With a satisfied smile, she gripped the cool metal and let the door swing open to reveal the library beyond. 

The main reception of the library itself looked distinctly normal, modern even, for all its supernatural trappings. If not for the door, even Willow herself would have found it difficult to believe the place riddled with magic. The Coterie Library was one of the oldest magical libraries in the world. Access to the Library was by invitation only: an invitation Willow had worked very hard to get. Though smaller than many of its counterparts, its collection was more than a little eclectic. It contained many books and manuscripts thought to be lost, or in some cases, purposefully destroyed. Willow had little doubt that somewhere in here, amongst the stacks and vaults, would be exactly what she needed. Exactly what her dream had wanted her to find.

Willow waved brightly at an elderly man sat at the reception desk. “Morning, Pete.”

“Good morning, Miss Rosenburg,” he replied with a cheery smile, glancing up from his computer screen. “Busy day planned?”

“Always,” she said as she wrote her name and the date in the ledger on his desk. “No rest for the wicked. Hey, do you mind if I take the key to the vault today?”

“No problem, pet. Just make sure you get it back to us by four. Professor Hartley ‘ll be needing it then.” Pete fished the key out of the lock box that sat behind his desk and handed it to Willow. “And no drinking in the vault, mind. You’re lucky it’s me that caught you last time and not Keith. He’d have your guts for garters if he so much as suspected you’d taken contraband in there.” 

“Noted. No liquids in the vault.”

“See you later.”

“Bye, Pete.”

\---

The Coterie Library was a difficult place. It was overwhelmingly odd, full of corridors that on some days went nowhere and rooms that were simultaneously full of something and nothing. It was the sort of place where the processes of searching and finding were not necessarily a linear progression. The sort of place that required a guide, especially if one didn’t actually know what they were looking for.

Willow hastily made her way down the main hallway, not wanting to spend too long here alone, lest she offend. As she went, she ran her fingertips down the corridor’s light blue walls, her eyes fixed firmly ahead, until she came to the first of its doors. There she darted quickly through it, the door falling shut behind her with a soft click. Standing inside the small, windowless room beyond, she shucked her backpack off her shoulders and set it beside a large oak desk in the centre of the chamber. From the bag she removed the candles, dish and bottle she had packed and placed them reverently upon the table top. Willow wiped her palms against the front of her jeans. She cracked the knuckles of both hands and grinned, as she always did, now ready to begin. 

Her feet firmly planted on the deep blue carpet, Willow reached for the bottle upon the table. With a hum, she uncorked it. The green glass was cool in her hand. Comforting. She began to pour the thick, black liquid into the silver dish, watching with a practiced eye as it slowly coated the bottom. She poured until she could see no silver, only darkness in the flat of the dish.

Nodding to herself, she jammed the cork back into the bottle and set it aside on the table. Next she placed a candle either side of the dish and with a snap of her fingers and a small flicker of magic, set them alight. The smell of rancid animal fat filled the air as the tallow began to melt and she wrinkled her nose in disgust, making a mental note to buy the more expensive candles in future. 

Willow leant over the dish, dipping her index finger into the dark liquid. She felt the familiar sting of the offering as the fluid hit her skin. Just a small prick, no more than a needle stick, and a drop of blood was all it took. Satisfied, she slowly withdrew her finger from the bowl. It came out clean, as always, the pad of her finger already healed.

From within the bowl the liquid began to swell, forming a small orb. It swirled as it grew, turning from black to a deep, shining gold. Light began to flicker at its centre. First a mere fleck, like a distant star, then more. A firefly’s worth became that of a light bulb in a matter of seconds, the orb glowing ever brighter as the minutes passed. The light pulsed and grew at its centre until it became so bright Willow had to shield her eyes. Then it stopped. The light dimmed, turning a soft grassy green as it sat proudly in its dish. Willow blinked. This was unexpected. Her guide was golden, not green. 

Curiosity snapping at the edges of her thoughts, Willow bowed deeply, dropping her gaze from the unexpectedly green orb. It wouldn’t do to offend whoever had answered her call. She could feel the orb’s power, wild and raw, emanating from the table. Its questing tendrils curled around her form, seeking her, knowing her. She shivered as she felt its presence brush against her skin, sending sparks through her. 

** WILLOW ROSENBURG. FIRST OF HER KIND. I AM PLEASED TO MEET YOU. **

The tendrils withdrew as it spoke within her mind, the words ripping through her like a shockwave. It was female, seemingly friendly, an extraordinary amount of warmth to the tone of its words. And very powerful. It was unlike anything she’d ever communed with before. 

“Hello. Pleased to meet you too. Though I’m not sure I know who the you I’m meeting is. You’re not the usual you I meet here.” Willow drew herself upright and placed a hand on the dish. She felt the being chuckle at her words. 

** WE HAVE ALREADY MET. I AM BRIGANTIA, GODDESS OF THESE LANDS. I BROUGHT YOU YOUR DREAM. **

Her dream. Willow’s eyes fluttered closed at the memory of it, half cast in shadows and the fog of sleep. A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the darkness that lurked within it. Undefined, misty almost, yet ever present. An omen of what was to come. 

“How can I help you?”

 **YOU NEED TO FIND THE LIGHT. I WILL SHOW YOU.**

The light from the orb flickered as it rose from its place in the dish. It hovered briefly beneath Willow’s nose before it shot off out the door with a low hum. Willow blew out the candles and quickly swept the items on the table back into her backpack. Slinging the bag onto her shoulder, she swept from the room in hot pursuit.

\---

The vault was far too cold. Willow shivered, drawing her dark green scarf tighter around her shoulders as she read. The book was heavy in her lap, the silver clasps embedded in the dark leather digging uncomfortably into her thighs. Behind her bobbed the orb. Brigantia had been silent for some time, her light merely letting out the occasional flicker as Willow read.

She’d been down here for hours. It had taken a long time to find the book, nestled as it was behind one of the large stacks over by the western wall. If Willow didn’t know any better, she’d say it was as if the book hadn’t wanted to be found. That it had been hiding. 

Willow turned the page, the crackling whisper of the thin velum sheet filling the air. The spine of the old Coterie diary creaked as she smoothed the pages down. Her eyes flickered back down to the fine copperplate writing, widening in horror as she took in what was written on the page. 

“Uh oh,” she breathed. “Not good. Very not good.”

With shaking hands, Willow reached for her mobile, punching in the numbers with more force than strictly necessary. One call to Bath, one to New York and one to LA. At each number she left the same message. 

“We have a problem. I’ve called the others. You need to come here as soon as you can.”

There was no need for further explanation. No time. Not when she knew they would come at her call, however vague. No. Now was a time of deeds, not words. Words would come later. 

** COME **

Willow watched as the orb shot off down towards the centre of the stacks. She snapped shut the book, tucking it under her arm as she made to follow.


End file.
